This is how Robert Downey Jr. destroyed your life and managed to rebuild it little by little

Iron Man is the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to which this franchise has become the most profitable in the world. The role of Tony Stark made Robert Downey Jr. the idol of millions and one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. But before his rise to the top of fame, he literally had to go through all the circles of hell, and not just once.

The wording of awesome.club is still impressed by the life story of Robert Downey Jr., which leaves nothing to be desired for the great Hollywood dramas.

Robert, 5 years old, participating for the first time in a film directed by his father, Pound🇧🇷 Just a year later, that same man introduced him to drugs.

The actor’s father, Robert Downey Sr., not only gave his son a ticket to the world of cinema, but also made him addicted to toxic substances. When the boy was just 6 years old, his father gave him marijuana for the first time, and at the age of 8, the boy already had a strong drug addiction and different health problems. According to Robert Downey Jr., in his Manhattan home, narcotics were always at hand. Many years later, his father would regret it and be very sorry, but that didn’t help to go back and change the years when his son’s life began to fall apart because of his destructive habits.

The actor continued his experiments with illicit drugs and alcohol into his teens. At this point, his parents divorced and he moved with his father to California. Robert soon dropped out of school and, at age 17, returned to his hometown of New York to balance his life with acting. After working for a year on the program Saturday Night Live and play various roles in theater plays, starred in the film The King of Flirtthanks to which his career began to grow.

At 19, Downey landed a role in the movie When Illusion Is Lost (1984) and met the future star of sex and the city, Sarah Jessica Parker. The young actors started a love story that lasted seven years, and could have ended in marriage, but due to Robert’s addictions, one of the most beautiful couples in Hollywood of the 1980s has been broken up.

After several teen comedies, Downey Jr. starred in the movie Under zero, in which he played a desperate teenager addicted to drugs. This job turned out to be fatal for him: the actor literally lived the fate of his hero, practically falling into a bottomless pit.

However, despite the consequences, this job gave him the opportunity to play the role of the legendary comedian in the film. Chaplin (1992), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Downey Jr. did not receive the coveted statuette: instead, the prize was Al Pacino for the cult film Women’s perfume🇧🇷

1992 was a successful year for the actor not only in terms of work, but also in his personal life. Robert officially married for the first time: the bride was the popular singer and model Deborah Falconer. In 1993, the couple had a son, Indio, and, inspired by the love and birth of their firstborn, Downey Jr. decided to stop using drugs. He bid farewell to his addictions by burying (literally) the clothes he wore in the movie Under zero🇧🇷

When the euphoria of the symbolic burial wore off, the addiction kicked in with all its might and Downey couldn’t resist. By 1994, he had returned to his usual pace, although he tried to convince his wife and everyone around him that he was squeaky clean. In 1995, the actor tried heroin for the first time, and in 1996, after constant back-and-forth, arrests and lies, Deborah took her son and left her husband.

Robert admitted that he had lost control of himself and that he couldn’t stop. He began to divide himself between film sets and rehabilitation centers, where his friends regularly sent him and where he too would run away to attend parties. Although the actor earned $7 million a year, drug addiction and wasting money led to his downfall.

In an interview, former Downey Jr. rep Loree Rodkin said that every day when she opened a new newspaper, she expected to see Robert’s obituary in it. In that dark period, the actor really stood between life and death.

In the same unfortunate 1996, Downey Jr. was arrested several times. By court decision, he was sent to a drug rehabilitation center with a 24-hour treatment program, from where he escaped through a window in the bathroom and, hitchhiking, went home. After 4 hours, the actor was captured and imprisoned for 9 days.

After a month and a half, the court ordered Downey to spend half a year in rehab with regular, mandatory checkups. In December 1997, the unpredictable and uncontrollable actor violated the conditions of the probation period, which is why he was imprisoned for 113 days in Los Angeles County Central Prison.

His charismatic image and celebrity status only added to his problems in prison: the actor fought with other prisoners constantly, eventually wounding himself quite often. Sometimes he even woke up in a pool of his own blood. After one of these fights with three guys, Robert was seriously injured and transferred to a solitary cell.

After 113 days, the court released Downey Jr. from prison, but released him on parole and sent him to a 120-day rehabilitation program. However, after again violating the conditions and failing the mandatory exams, he was sentenced to three years in prison in Corcoran (California) and to be supervised by the addiction treatment center at the correctional facility.

In prison, the actor worked 5 days a week in the cafeteria, where he distributed food, washed dishes and cleaned pans. Dealing with over 200 kg of garbage every day, Downey Jr. realized that he was a person capable of doing absolutely anything.

After nearly a year of drug addiction treatment and a stint in state prison, Downey Jr. was released on $5,000 bond.

The Court ruled that the actor had already spent enough time deprived of his liberty, counting the 1996 arrests. In 2000, upon regaining his freedom, Robert Jr. tried to return to cinema and soon joined the filming of the television series Ally McBeal🇧🇷

His work on that project received rave reviews: he was nominated for an Emmy and received a Golden Globe, but after the end of the first season, he was arrested again for the same sins. The fact that he was at risk of being sent to prison for 5 years did not stop him from continuing to work on the series.

The producer’s patience ran out when Downey Jr. was arrested again in April 2001: police caught him wandering around Culver City barefoot and found cocaine in his blood. Robert was fired from Ally McBeallost his role in the movie America’s Darlings and became a true pariah in the world of cinema. In addition, he received 3 years of probation, was sentenced to compulsory treatment, was in debt and had no health insurance. To top it off, his wife, Deborah, has officially filed for divorce.

No one knows how this story would have ended if one of Downey Jr.’s few remaining friends, Mel Gibson, hadn’t reached out a helping hand these days. Their friendship started during the filming of Air America: Crazy for Danger, and persists to this day. Mel Gibson not only supported Robert, but also lent him his role in the film. Crime of a Detective, of which he was one of the producers. Mel risked her own money by paying a large insurance guarantee to the movie company, which would pay the damages if Downey Jr. cause any interruption of filming. But he did not let his friend down and fully justified his trust.

After this role, the actor, for the first time in many years, finally received an offer to participate in a high-budget film: the psychological thriller In the Company of Fear (2003), along with Halle Berry. However, the cinematic environment still did not trust Downey Jr., so the film’s producer withheld 40% of his fee until the end of filming. Since then, this kind of condition regarding money has become the norm in their contracts. He used all the funds received from that film to pay off his debts and his health insurance, and then continued to work hard, acting in new productions.

participation in In the Company of Fear was crucial for Downey Jr.: It was there, in 2003, that he met his future wife, film producer Susan Levin, who played a huge part in his victory over drug addiction. The artist had tried to overcome his substance abuse problems for many years, but he always relapsed. And thanks to his love for Susan, he was able to let go of destructive habits.

The woman imposed on the actor the condition of completely giving up drugs to accept her marriage proposal. Downey Jr. threw the contents of all their stashes into the ocean, and the two were married in 2005.

In 2011, Robert and Susan had a son, Exton Elias Downey, and in 2014, their daughter Avri Roel Downey was born. From 2003 until today, the actor has not consumed alcohol or narcotic substances. His wife, regular meditations and kung fu exercises help him keep his “dark side” in check. In 2008, the artist was again nominated for an Oscar for his performance in tropical Thunder and in 2010, the couple opened their own production company, Team Downey.

Having tidied up his personal life and resolved his addiction issues, Robert Downey Jr. began to climb higher and higher in his career. He participated in several successful films, such as Sherlock Holmes, but worldwide fame came after, in 2008, the artist began playing Tony Stark/Iron Man, the multimillion-dollar Marvel superhero. For 10 years, Downey has brought this character to life in a series of Avengers films, each of which is eagerly awaited by millions…